Fintech News Issue #169
May 24th, 2018

Does banking fail to serve the older ones of digital native customers? About Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon in war with banks and the European experience of building the future of banking. Everything worth knowing in our weekly roundup. Enjoy!
– Michael and the FinTech Weekly team

Top Stories

“I think the success of digital banking is very simple. If you look at traditional banks, they have built up companies over the last 40 to 50 years and I think the difficulty is they are non-digital companies. They have a big workforce and it’s very hard to transform a company that has maybe 50,000 employees into a digital company.

Millennials may be the most likely to embrace the 'next best thing' in mobile banking, but tectonic shifts in mobile banking adoption rates indicate that Boomers are the segment with the most potential for growth and profits.

Top Events

FinTech World Forum 2018 is based in London UK Europe as one of leading fintech events for global financial, finance and banking technology industry. Its focuses on Mobile Payments, Lending, Insurance, Blockchain, Bitcoin, Investment, InsurTech, RegTech, Money, Mobile Banking and Wealth Management. For more info visit: http://fintechconferences.com

FinTech Articles

The growth of big data during the last decade has opened the door to a lot of opportunities and threats alike. Big data is not just big and powerful, it is also prone to errors. We can currently process more than terabytes of data at a lightning and superficial speed

Real estate crowdfunding came into existence after the Global Financial Crisis. Several high profile startups got started around 2010–2012, spurred in part by the JOBS Act which streamlined the process of raising capital from individual investors. As the Internet transformed one industry after another, the real estate investment space appeared stodgy and overdue for disruption.

Much of the hype around fintech focuses on what traditional banks do wrong: they’re slow to adopt new technology; they don’t center the customer; they’re too big to respond nimbly to change. This narrative is part of why fintech continues to attract massive investment, with $31 billion total flowing into the sector last year, according to KPMG.

Regulatory scrutiny is increasing, but this isn't slowing the pace of blockchain activity — if anything, it's helping the industry mature. As financing methods shift and investors search for the killer app, we dive into eight trends shaping the future of blockchain technology.

Quite a few people talk about invisible banking today. The idea is that banking transactions and services should be invisible as if they are noticeable, as in visible, then that means you have pain and friction which should have been removed.

Fintech is officially cool these days and banks have gone from indifference, to various degrees of engagement (via incomprehension and PR frenzy) to eventually totally drinking the cool aid. Which is awesome for the banks but I am not of the school that thinks this will make life easier for the start-ups. And this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Turbulence in banking markets just won’t let up. New competitors ranging from established technology giants, such as Alibaba and Amazon, to smaller specialists, such as Mint and Betterment, have steadily encroached on traditional banking activities.

FinTech is a relatively new industry applying technology to improve financial activities. FinTech companies consist of both startups and established financial and technology companies trying to replace or enhance services provided by existing financial companies. Typical areas in which FinTech companies operate include online and mobile payments, alternative finance and financial management.

RegTech as a segment has been witnessing immense interest and activity in the recent past – be it due to the huge fines for non-compliance being imposed by regulators across the world; the reputational damage resulting from these fines, especially for the large, well-known banks; or the realization of the huge potential cost savings and other strategic benefits.

At the Blockchain for Insurance summit in London, a gathering of major insurance players, technologists and thought leaders promoting digital transformation using blockchain, a clear pattern is emerging.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform customer experiences and establish entirely new business models in banking. To achieve the highest level of results, there needs to be a collaboration between humans and machines that will require training and a reassessment of the future of work in banking.

Lenders are facing more competition than ever. From e-commerce giants to rideshare apps and investment banks. Applying for a loan or other forms of credit is getting easier, which is why traditional and fintech lenders need to be ahead of the competition to retain market share.